Sunshine: Fauns in a HP World
Jul. 19th, 2021 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
paulamcgI haven't tried to plan any responses before seeing the description of each prompt at the Sunshine Challenge. Now I'm happy to realise that the fifth prompt, Pan gives me another chance to post about Remus Lupin and the Revolt of the Creatures.
I proudly present some original characters who are fauns! Yes, back in 2004, a few months after starting to share fanfic as WiP on a small Harry Potter forum, I (didn't know much about how other people wrote fanfic and) was proud to be creative enough to develop a lot of original characters, some of them part-human and non-human creatures, as well as original settings, also hidden areas inhabited by magical creatures beyond real places in Britain. I let my post-OotP Remus interact with goblins, half-goblins, half-giants, a half-veela, elves, hags etc. Even fauns and a half-faun! (And in some chapters, there are a lot of scenes where the only other canon character is Hedwig or Mundungus Fletcher).
Why not? I found it only natural to add fauns to the motley crowd of creatures from mythology and folklore that had been shown to us in the HP books by that time. My fauns were certainly not the first ones in stories written in English and set in the English landscape. I wonder if any other fauns have been spotted in this fandom, though.
The first excerpt is from a scene in which a theatre troupe takes Remus unawares by offering to join in his rebellion and asking him to join them in their performances. Here I introduce my least minor faun character, Peck, and his partner, half-faun Tumble.
The other two excerpts are from the chapter following the scene I shared for prompt three, the scene set in the werewolf village.
Thisby the half-veela sat down on the edge of the stage. The light left her. She bent her head and wrapped her rags tighter around herself.
Remus felt that his face was wet of tears. Suddenly he was aware of the faces and the sounds of the audience around him. Each expression was different. Still, all the creatures were weeping for the one who had reflected the beauty of creation and was burdened by the uncertainty of her own life.
At the big table closest to him two half-giants were comforting each other and squeezing the little bearded waiter in their hug. Next to them a faun climbed onto the table and played a mournful tune from his flute. A lanky youth joined him, grabbed one of his horns and turned his head to get his attention.
“Play a merrier tune to comfort the damsel,
play a tune to dance! I can dance if you can’t.”
The youth bowed to the audience, turned and bowed three times more, and Remus saw that he had horns, too, little ones half hidden in his thick curly auburn hair. He lifted the frayed hem of his robes and revealed hoofs, which started to move in a quick rhythm across the table. The clatter of the hoofs almost covered the sound of the flute. The faun persistently continued to play the lament, but the rhythm of the dancing hoofs intertwined with it and enticed it to change. Yet, at times the flute forced the dancer to follow its lead.
The rest of the audience had hushed. The half-giants had placed their bulky arms on each other’s shoulders and lifted the little waiter up to sit on their shoulders between the two huge shaggy heads. Suddenly the three of them burst into laughter, and it was echoed across the room.
Now the faun with the wailing flute was running around the table after the half-faun, whose steps were weaving more and more intricate patterns. The faun was trying to trip him, but he jumped ever higher on every other step. Now he started to aim kicks on the faun. The faun seemed to flee in panic, which could be heard in his tune. But again he grinned and a playful tune escaped from his flute, and he finally tripped the dancer.
While falling, the half-faun turned a somersault and hit with his hoof the faun’s tail, and the faun fell in no less skilful manner. The half-faun landed on the bench, and the faun’s somersault brought him to his knees on top of the red head and holding the tiny horns.
The audience exploded to applaud. But a shrill elated laughter like a cry of a bird suddenly silenced them.
Thisby had stood up; she was jumping up and down and clapping her hands. Her face was shining again, although there was no silver on her tattered robe now. She spread her arms, and with a few springy steps the dancer leaped to her embrace. He knelt to kiss her hand, while the faun, still on top of his head, quickly kissed her on the mouth. The applause rose like a storm again, and the two stood on either side of Thisby to bow.
She had frozen with a hand on her mouth. A complete silence followed in anticipation of her reaction.
“No, no! Not on the mouth!
...
The moon was waving and winking at him between the wild clouds. He was wrapped in the famous flying blanket, and Mundungus in the tattered overcoat, and with the grimy black pipe in his mouth, was moving among the company, making an inventory of drinks. They had all gathered in a tight circle around a campfire, and Dave the half-giant was like a rock, radiating the warmth of the day, but remarkably more comfortable for Remus to lean against.
Across the fire he saw some more fauns entering the circle of golden light from out of the shadows. One leaped over Peck’s shoulder to sit on his lap and was introduced to Tumble. A couple of others gathered very close to Mr Grubber so as to watch him giving the final touches to a bow cut of yew. Only for a moment did the old half-goblin seem irritated by the distraction. He started to lecture and to demonstrate the superior qualities of his self-made new weapon, and in a moment Remus heard him laugh out loud. Grap and Urgy stood up and their dragon leather boots shone in the flicker of the flames. The steady stronghold that Dave had formed now suddenly trembled, as he fitted an arrow on an enormous bow, too.
“‘Igh time to start makin’ some dinner, don’t you think?” The words were whispered by Mundungus, who had returned to Remus and now offered him a hand to help him stand up.
At that moment Robin’s beaming face got everyone’s attention, as he sang a strange spirited melody before giving the instructions. “We’ll proceed in a wide semicircle to drive them towards that clearing under the ridge. Let’s spread out now.”
...
By the time he had, supported by Mundungus, managed to walk back to the campsite, there was an enticing fragrance of a square meal emanating from cooking pots on the fire. Dave welcomed him back to the shelter of his bulky figure and handed him a large soup plate. The meat had been spiced with herbs and cooked with sweet roots. Satisfying his hunger with this food gave him the astonishing sensation that he had never eaten anything real before.
The moon waved him goodbye, and gentle darkness surrounded the red glow on the circle of faces. The contented murmur got interspersed by more and more frequent bursts of laughter as well as by less and less fumbling attempts at melodies. Just when Peck’s shawm had invited Tumble to jump up to start a dance, the tune was disrupted to remain a fanfare announcing the arrival of the messengers. The message itself was the most triumphant music.
A flock of amazanthines sprinkled the clearing with the lustre of jewels in unattainable flashes, as if too precious to be captured into anyone’s possession. But their song was a continuous hymn, built up in a canon. And it still echoed in the fragrant air, after the birds had hushed and risen high up to remain above the company, like circling stars with a warm twinkle.
The solemn atmosphere changed, when each faun launched into translating the message to the other creatures. The fragments of excited conversations caused a mixture of proud amusement and embarrassment in Remus. Hedwig had apparently described the events in the village to the little birds. He felt like communicating a gentle reproach to her, when she now flew straight to him and perched on his knees. She looked so happy, however, to find him, for once, with no pain, happy and well-nourished, that he did not muster any complaint, after all. But he yearned for detailed news concerning possible casualties. He looked around expectantly and was relieved to see one of the fauns approach him.
The faun squatted himself in front of Remus and bent his head low, covering his horns with his right hand and reaching out his left open palm slantwise down and towards him. The silent homage got everyone’s attention, and all the fauns joined in it, albeit remaining at their places in the circle – while the other creatures exploded into a remarkably less restrained applause.
Remus did not know what else to do but close his eyes for a moment and bend his head, too. “Please tell me about the damage the werewolves caused,” he asked as calmly as he could.
I proudly present some original characters who are fauns! Yes, back in 2004, a few months after starting to share fanfic as WiP on a small Harry Potter forum, I (didn't know much about how other people wrote fanfic and) was proud to be creative enough to develop a lot of original characters, some of them part-human and non-human creatures, as well as original settings, also hidden areas inhabited by magical creatures beyond real places in Britain. I let my post-OotP Remus interact with goblins, half-goblins, half-giants, a half-veela, elves, hags etc. Even fauns and a half-faun! (And in some chapters, there are a lot of scenes where the only other canon character is Hedwig or Mundungus Fletcher).
Why not? I found it only natural to add fauns to the motley crowd of creatures from mythology and folklore that had been shown to us in the HP books by that time. My fauns were certainly not the first ones in stories written in English and set in the English landscape. I wonder if any other fauns have been spotted in this fandom, though.
The first excerpt is from a scene in which a theatre troupe takes Remus unawares by offering to join in his rebellion and asking him to join them in their performances. Here I introduce my least minor faun character, Peck, and his partner, half-faun Tumble.
The other two excerpts are from the chapter following the scene I shared for prompt three, the scene set in the werewolf village.
Thisby the half-veela sat down on the edge of the stage. The light left her. She bent her head and wrapped her rags tighter around herself.
Remus felt that his face was wet of tears. Suddenly he was aware of the faces and the sounds of the audience around him. Each expression was different. Still, all the creatures were weeping for the one who had reflected the beauty of creation and was burdened by the uncertainty of her own life.
At the big table closest to him two half-giants were comforting each other and squeezing the little bearded waiter in their hug. Next to them a faun climbed onto the table and played a mournful tune from his flute. A lanky youth joined him, grabbed one of his horns and turned his head to get his attention.
“Play a merrier tune to comfort the damsel,
play a tune to dance! I can dance if you can’t.”
The youth bowed to the audience, turned and bowed three times more, and Remus saw that he had horns, too, little ones half hidden in his thick curly auburn hair. He lifted the frayed hem of his robes and revealed hoofs, which started to move in a quick rhythm across the table. The clatter of the hoofs almost covered the sound of the flute. The faun persistently continued to play the lament, but the rhythm of the dancing hoofs intertwined with it and enticed it to change. Yet, at times the flute forced the dancer to follow its lead.
The rest of the audience had hushed. The half-giants had placed their bulky arms on each other’s shoulders and lifted the little waiter up to sit on their shoulders between the two huge shaggy heads. Suddenly the three of them burst into laughter, and it was echoed across the room.
Now the faun with the wailing flute was running around the table after the half-faun, whose steps were weaving more and more intricate patterns. The faun was trying to trip him, but he jumped ever higher on every other step. Now he started to aim kicks on the faun. The faun seemed to flee in panic, which could be heard in his tune. But again he grinned and a playful tune escaped from his flute, and he finally tripped the dancer.
While falling, the half-faun turned a somersault and hit with his hoof the faun’s tail, and the faun fell in no less skilful manner. The half-faun landed on the bench, and the faun’s somersault brought him to his knees on top of the red head and holding the tiny horns.
The audience exploded to applaud. But a shrill elated laughter like a cry of a bird suddenly silenced them.
Thisby had stood up; she was jumping up and down and clapping her hands. Her face was shining again, although there was no silver on her tattered robe now. She spread her arms, and with a few springy steps the dancer leaped to her embrace. He knelt to kiss her hand, while the faun, still on top of his head, quickly kissed her on the mouth. The applause rose like a storm again, and the two stood on either side of Thisby to bow.
She had frozen with a hand on her mouth. A complete silence followed in anticipation of her reaction.
“No, no! Not on the mouth!
...
The moon was waving and winking at him between the wild clouds. He was wrapped in the famous flying blanket, and Mundungus in the tattered overcoat, and with the grimy black pipe in his mouth, was moving among the company, making an inventory of drinks. They had all gathered in a tight circle around a campfire, and Dave the half-giant was like a rock, radiating the warmth of the day, but remarkably more comfortable for Remus to lean against.
Across the fire he saw some more fauns entering the circle of golden light from out of the shadows. One leaped over Peck’s shoulder to sit on his lap and was introduced to Tumble. A couple of others gathered very close to Mr Grubber so as to watch him giving the final touches to a bow cut of yew. Only for a moment did the old half-goblin seem irritated by the distraction. He started to lecture and to demonstrate the superior qualities of his self-made new weapon, and in a moment Remus heard him laugh out loud. Grap and Urgy stood up and their dragon leather boots shone in the flicker of the flames. The steady stronghold that Dave had formed now suddenly trembled, as he fitted an arrow on an enormous bow, too.
“‘Igh time to start makin’ some dinner, don’t you think?” The words were whispered by Mundungus, who had returned to Remus and now offered him a hand to help him stand up.
At that moment Robin’s beaming face got everyone’s attention, as he sang a strange spirited melody before giving the instructions. “We’ll proceed in a wide semicircle to drive them towards that clearing under the ridge. Let’s spread out now.”
...
By the time he had, supported by Mundungus, managed to walk back to the campsite, there was an enticing fragrance of a square meal emanating from cooking pots on the fire. Dave welcomed him back to the shelter of his bulky figure and handed him a large soup plate. The meat had been spiced with herbs and cooked with sweet roots. Satisfying his hunger with this food gave him the astonishing sensation that he had never eaten anything real before.
The moon waved him goodbye, and gentle darkness surrounded the red glow on the circle of faces. The contented murmur got interspersed by more and more frequent bursts of laughter as well as by less and less fumbling attempts at melodies. Just when Peck’s shawm had invited Tumble to jump up to start a dance, the tune was disrupted to remain a fanfare announcing the arrival of the messengers. The message itself was the most triumphant music.
A flock of amazanthines sprinkled the clearing with the lustre of jewels in unattainable flashes, as if too precious to be captured into anyone’s possession. But their song was a continuous hymn, built up in a canon. And it still echoed in the fragrant air, after the birds had hushed and risen high up to remain above the company, like circling stars with a warm twinkle.
The solemn atmosphere changed, when each faun launched into translating the message to the other creatures. The fragments of excited conversations caused a mixture of proud amusement and embarrassment in Remus. Hedwig had apparently described the events in the village to the little birds. He felt like communicating a gentle reproach to her, when she now flew straight to him and perched on his knees. She looked so happy, however, to find him, for once, with no pain, happy and well-nourished, that he did not muster any complaint, after all. But he yearned for detailed news concerning possible casualties. He looked around expectantly and was relieved to see one of the fauns approach him.
The faun squatted himself in front of Remus and bent his head low, covering his horns with his right hand and reaching out his left open palm slantwise down and towards him. The silent homage got everyone’s attention, and all the fauns joined in it, albeit remaining at their places in the circle – while the other creatures exploded into a remarkably less restrained applause.
Remus did not know what else to do but close his eyes for a moment and bend his head, too. “Please tell me about the damage the werewolves caused,” he asked as calmly as he could.
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Date: 2021-07-20 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2021-07-22 10:31 am (UTC)I'm glad you enjoy also writing OCs, and that I've finally met your marvellous goblin OC – with all that culture and history, and as the pov-character, too – in Subversive. I think I've used an OC's pov only twice (my house-elf Gumby's in What's in His Heart, and werewolf and artist Jean's, only alternating with Remus's pov, in Any Gift of True Caring). There's a hag character in From the Oblivion in a rather important role, but she's not a pov-character. The other OCs in my short stories are full humans, as far as I can remember at the moment.
On the forum where I started, maybe the most common way of writing fanfic was to introduce a magical human OC as the central character to interact with canon characters. Nowadays we get to enjoy that kind of originality in character-development perhaps mainly when it's someone who's at least a name while not much more in canon. Minor OCs, too, can make the writer's version of the world feel more real or more magical, or both, don't you think?
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Date: 2021-07-28 10:47 pm (UTC)I think you should definitely post it on AO3! I don't think too much revision is necessary. . .just a final read-through after you've let it sit for a couple of days. But you wouldn't need even that if you didn't want to.
Minor OCs, too, can make the writer's version of the world feel more real or more magical, or both, don't you think?
I do! When creating an OC, writers have to do all the character-building themselves; they can't take any shortcuts; they can't just fall back on what readers already know from canon. Not having to build every character from scratch is one of the pleasures of fanfic -- we can build on what's already there and thus can go further than if we had to start from zero every time.
But canon characters can also be a limitation if one isn't careful -- we might be tempted to skimp on character building and motivation (which is necessary even for already-existing characters, imo), and we can end up with two-dimensional or superficial depictions. My favorite writers rarely fall into this trap, but I'm always mindful of it as I write.
A minor character OC (or a fleshed-out version of a super-minor canon character) also gives an interesting vantage point for point-of-view -- I usually enjoy reading stories with a narrator or POV character who is NOT central to the action. Such a position replicates that of the fanfic author, I think: we're in the same outside position.
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Date: 2021-08-04 06:31 pm (UTC)Your further reply has made me think about character development and perspectives mainly in a my-fic-centred manner, and I'm going to ramble awfully. Thank you for this opportunity!
we can build on what's already there and thus can go further than if we had to start from zero every time. I suppose I've made the most of this by always building on what I've written before. Perhaps that's why I've gone very far from usual fanon characterisations of Remus and Sirius. And, of course, I'd never have got anywhere without the prisoner of Azkaban and Professor Lupin. Now you make me wonder if (no matter how fully alive they seem to me within any one-shot fic, too) these two can appear as two-dimensional or superficial in the eyes of someone who reads a single short story separately.
Of course, when picking a canon character I haven't used before, I've got less to start with in the characterisation. But besides canon, I've got the HP world as I've developed it, and an understanding of the roles these characters play in my main protagonist's life. For instance Poppy... I was about to mention just No Mere Mundane Deer, but now remember that even before my Hoggywarty fic, I used her in Sense of Strategy – even as a POV character who is NOT central to the action (hers only as one among several perspectives, though)!
I was going to say that I rarely use outsiders' perspectives, and when reading, too, I'd rather not remain in the outside position. Still, I must have admired most of the outsider-pov fics I've read, probably because they are usually written by skillful writers. They can make even watching a couple's life from a duvet's point of view fascinating. You've also made me consider that a lot of readers can find it more comfortable to approach the protagonists – particularly those whom we make suffer and struggle and love deeply – from a distance.
I've believed in the power of "dropping the reader thorougly into the pov character's perspective" (as Delphi once worded it), showing a concrete situation of, preferably, interaction as well as sense perceptions for the reader to share. I think I did that even with Mr Tibbles, and perhaps he's the only exception – besides that multi-pov fic – from the rule that my pov character is also the center of the action, the true protagonist or one of the two protagonists, at least within that particular fic.
In 2019 I wrote almost exclusively fics set in the Marauders' era. As I chose the fun little challenge of using Lily's, James's and Peter's perspectives, too, each of them became (actually only James for the very fist time) also an outside narrator of a part of my main protagonist's story. In a later Ginny-centric, Neville-centric or Poppy-centric piece Remus may look like a minor character or be only mentioned, but in the context of all my fanfic, they are not the center of action, as he is.
When after my hiatus I enjoyed experimenting with something different and even chose an OC's perspective (for the fic I've already mentioned in my first reply), I dropped my (hypothetical) readers into a non-human character's perspective, hoping that they'd share his mind and senses. But as I felt our main interest was this phase in Remus and Sirius's love story, I was happy to have a special way to help us not remain outsiders. I picked the title from the text of What's in His Heart because – thanks to some essential magic (invented for Revolt) – the elf who narrates Sirius's first visit to Remus's childhood home is able to reach – and convey to us – Remus's earlier and current experiences. I remember how in an early phase of writing Revolt, I got the curious idea that I identified as Gumby, not as Remus directly, and that the whole novel could have been written by this elf.
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Date: 2021-08-11 09:27 pm (UTC)I love this line, too! I look back at my early fanfic (and my early scholarly articles) and sometimes cringe, but I also see how much I have learned and how far I have come.
They can make even watching a couple's life from a duvet's point of view fascinating.
Hahaha! Now you've totally got me wanting to write a fic from the pov of a magical duvet.
You've also made me consider that a lot of readers can find it more comfortable to approach the protagonists – particularly those whom we make suffer and struggle and love deeply – from a distance.
This is a very perceptive comment. I definitely felt this way in my early writing about Minerva. . .to me, she was such an important personality (more than a character, in some ways) that I felt a lot of trepidation in approaching her interiority. I don't think I wrote from her pov until my fourth or fifth story.
I've believed in the power of "dropping the reader thoroughly into the pov character's perspective" (as Delphi once worded it)
As usual, both you and Delphi have explained things perfectly. I love trying to think of exactly how things would appear to a pov character, no matter how wrong or morally indefensible such beliefs might be. It's a very useful exercise -- not only in terms of writing, but in general.
I try to get into people's heads in terms of all sorts of disagreements, not because I want to excuse their flaws, but because I think it's important to try to see how things look to them. Only in that way can we begin to address our differences meaningfully. Few people (luckily) are simply conscious, fully evil megalomaniacs like Voldemort. Even the worst of us try to construct narratives that justify our own actions. Even moral monsters don't want to admit that they are monsters. We have to understand how they think if we want to change things.
I once wrote a story from Snape's pov about the canon time that Harry uses Sectumsempra on Draco in the bathroom. My Snape was very critical of Harry, fairly critical of Dumbledore, and understanding (though still critical) toward Draco. I received a comment from a reader saying, "you're wrong to attack Harry" and offering numerous reasons why Dumbledore and Harry were blameless. I wrote back something neutral, but what I wanted to say was, "Even if I agreed with you, your points are irrelevant here. *I* am not the one 'attacking' Harry -- Snape is. I am writing about how SNAPE would see things, not how you or I might see them. It's not about who is 'right' or 'wrong' in some more objective sense, but how the character would think."
I also once wrote a story that pretended to be the personal journal of an 11-year-old Muggle girl. Of course she made various spelling and other errors, being only 11. Someone wrote to take me to task about my "careless" errors and to tell me how to "correct" them.
Too often, people assume that any "I" speaker is automatically the author. It's a failure of imagination that is sometimes comic but in some ways a bit scary.
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Date: 2021-08-14 02:17 pm (UTC)I felt a lot of trepidation in approaching her interiority. I naturally didn't hesitate to write Remus's perspective immediately, because my preference in reading was seeing a story from the protagonist's interiority. (I disliked all those part in the HP books which deviated from Harry's pov.)
At some point I got a bit worried about the fact that I never dropped readers into such a character's perspective who'd have seriously questionable beliefs. But perhaps it helped that my main pov character, with his sensitivity and compassion as well as doubts about his own motives and beliefs, listened to such characters and sought to understand how they saw things? I wonder if I didn't convey how things appeared to Peter as well in some Remus-pov Revolt scenes as I did in the few small Peter-pov fics I wrote later.
In any case, I have to admit I haven't done my best to be versatile. Instead, it looks like you've written an amazing variety of fics. The two examples you mention both sound fascinating.
It is worrying if fanfic readers assume that writers always share the values their pov-characters have and truly justify the characters deeds in the way the characters do. Could such an assumption have something to do with fanfic being often used for expressing support to phenomena (like same-sex or poly relationships) which have been under-represented in mainstream entertainment and even condemned by more people in the past? Maybe also in the culture of reality TV and of everyone sharing pieces of diary online, some people tend to take fictional stories too literally without grasping that they work on the basis of writers' and active recipients' imagination.
Perhaps it can actually be easier for some readers to learn to understand flawed personalities when seeing them through a sympathetic character's eyes, instead of being dropped into villains' perspectives'.
Thank you so much for another thought-provoking reply!